Struggling Nokia sells headquarters building

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia, which faces cash-flow problems, said on Tuesday it had agreed to sell and lease back its head office building outside Helsinki for 170 million euros ($222 million).

"Owning real estate is not part of Nokia's core business and when good opportunities arise we are willing to exit these types of non-core assets," Nokia's chief financial officer, Timo Ihamuotila, said in a statement.

"We are naturally continuing to operate in our head office building on a long-term basis," he added.

The troubled group, once a dominant force in the global market for handsets, recently posted its sixth quarterly loss in a row, burning through cash as it proceeds with a vast restructuring programme.

In October, the company said it was looking to sell its head office building, named "Nokia House".

The glass-and-steel waterfront structure was built in the town of Espoo in the 1990s, during the boom years for the telecom industry when Nokia become the world's biggest mobile phone maker.

The building has been sold to Finnish real estate company Exilion in a transaction to be completed by the end of the year, Nokia said.

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